Anthony Foley and Keith Wood were childhood friends. A heartbroken Wood gave a brave and moving interview on 'Newstalk' this morning after Foley's tragic death on Saturday night.
After Foley's untimely death, tributes from his former team-mates and colleagues have been pouring in from far and wide via newspaper, on the airwaves and social media. Keith Wood, one of Foley's best friends and a man who grew up alongside him in Killaloe, offered one of the most poignant tributes when speaking to Pat Kenny on his Newstalk radio show this morning.
Wood, voice heavy with emotion, described a man "who loved sport", "who was shy but sociable, driven beyond belief from as early an age as I can remember."
I remember calling up to his house - he must have been twelve or thirteen years of age - and he was sitting down with his father, the curtains were drawn in the room, and they had an old battered video recorder and they were re-winding everything...he was dedicated to the sport, to getting better. This was in the middle of the summer, in the heat...just going over hours and hours of videotape.
His innate ability to read a game of rugby, an ability to look at a play in real time and know exactly where to be...he was invariably wherever the ball was.
Wood painted a picture of a man who loved all sport - and, outside rugby, hurling in particular (Foley hurled underage for Clare and there was a minute's silence held for him before the county's club senior hurling final on Sunday):
He loved sport...the pleasure Anthony used to get going to a hurling match. He was so excited to see his kids playing hurling now that they were at the age to. It's just unbelievably sad.
I'm smiling rarely, but there are memories that come back that would make you smile.
He played for Clare under-16, he was a very capable left-sided hurler...he was well able to hurl. He absolutely loved it.
We would have played with a lot of that Clare team who won the '95 All-Ireland, and we went to the (final) game together. Of course it was fantastic. It was one of those memories. We were first out of the ground when it was over, ran to our car to get ahead of everybody to get back to Killaloe.
Wood said that the last twenty-four hours and the messages he had received from all over the world were evidence that Foley "touched a huge amount of lives...there is a strain of humanity that comes through it." And he outlined that from school level onwards it was clear that his friend was a born leader - especially in the jersey of his beloved Munster.
He was able to do everything. He had pretty much all the skills. He was such an extraordinary standout at school level...everywhere he did anything there was a trophy in his hand at the end of it. He knew how to win.
He was a one-club man. He played for Munster his whole life, that was extraordinary.
He didn't speak a huge amount, but everything he said was perfect...when I was with Ireland I'd nod at him to say something, because sometimes you just needed a point of clarity. Anthony knew what clarity was, he knew the right thing to say at the right time, the right thing to do at the right time. With Munster, that seemed to take on an additional belief. He knew it, he played it, he lived it. He was able to articulate it.
A "natural" coach "since thirteen years of age", who on the field of play "did the right thing at the right time, nearly all the time", Wood fondly remembered an occasion when Domino's Pizza had offered a free pizza to whoever scored the first try in a Munster game at Thomond Park:
Foley got a hat trick, just to make sure.
In an admirable and courageous interview, Wood talked about Foley's "wicked dry sense of humour" and called it "surreal" to be "talking about him in the past tense" while acknowledging Foley's "heartbreaking" loss to his family and friends, particularly his wife Olive and two young sons.
It's trying to get those nice memories out again and those fond memories and to try and smile a little bit at the moment, if it's possible.
You can listen to the full audio clip, which also includes tributes from Brent Pope and Shane Byrne, below.
